


we've both fallen under

by curiouslyfic



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, F/M, Family, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, space is dangerous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3490865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She swears when it happens that nothing she’ll ever live through is going to hurt as much as hearing the Kelvin go down. </p>
<p>Time proves her wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've both fallen under

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thistlerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/gifts).



> Written for Thistlerose for Day 3 of Purimgifts 2015. 
> 
> Title by Pat Benetar.

 

 

 

She swears when it happens that nothing she’ll ever live through is going to hurt as much as hearing the Kelvin go down, knowing that’s _George_ out there disappearing into static.

Nothing but white noise and strained compassion on the faces around her and a giant hole in her life where George should be, her whole future imploded.

 

She never thought she’d be that kind of woman, that kind of wife, but it turns out she is. Nothing feels right anymore. Not because she can’t do it — she can, she has, she is — but because she knows she shouldn’t be, not on her own.

.

She’s never been one to shy away from trouble anyway but losing George changes her, leaves her even less inclined to give. Frank says it’s that she’s left the best part of her out there in the wreckage. She thinks it’s just that some things change you, make you harder than most people will ever need to be.

Grieving with a newborn, that’s a kind of crucible no one should ever need to deal with. Getting through it without losing her family, pushing her kids away and withdrawing into herself when it’s just all too much, that’s just miraculous.

It’s not solace she finds in Jim, who’s still much to small to be anything but present; instead, it’s family, the anchor keeping her present, too, even when she wants to be anywhere else.

 

She is not going to be a perfect mom, she is going to make so many mistakes, but she will try to make them for good reasons.

.

She has a lot of time to think about it later, go over and over it trying to get past it, and it’s all on Earth because Starfleet hears _widow_ and _newborn_ and falls all over themselves trying to be accommodating.

She’s not sure she’ll ever stop resenting that.

It’s a fight to get herself sent out-of-town, let alone off-planet; a fight to get back any part of the life Winona Kirk’s supposed to have. But she does it, one foot in front of the other until it feels like she’s _herself_.

She lives a whole life too stubborn to stop pushing, too scared of what she’ll find left of herself if she does.

.

Then she finds herself out on a science outpost on the far side of the planet, watching every newsfeed tell her Jim’s gone, too.

It’s so much worse.

At least George said goodbye.

At least she’d _known_.

And even when she’s got Jim back and it’s clear he’s somehow been one of a handful of cadets to make it home alive, she can’t quite shake the coldness in her waiting for space to break her heart again.

.

When it does, it’s nothing like she expects.

It’s not a call about Jim that sucks the breath right out of her, it’s a call _from_ him.

It’s _that_ look on Jim’s face. The red-rimmed eyes, too wet and too bright, way too glassy for the stunned grimness of his expression.

“Mom,” Jim says, distant beyond the galaxy between them, then, “Mom,” again like he’s working up to something.

Winona’s never met his pilot, she doesn’t even have a first name, but she doesn’t need one. She knows.

“Mom, they can’t find him,” Jim says, in a tone that really wants to be a question. Isn’t quite. “Mom? I don’t…How do I do this?”

She’s spent his whole life worried someday he’ll disappear like his father. Until this moment, she hasn’t considered that someday, he might just disappear like her, instead.

.

She never does get specifics, certainly nothing like an explanation as to how or why a Starfleet shuttlecraft just up and disappears in Federation space even _temporarily_ , but really, she doesn’t need them. It’s enough that Jim gets him back.

And the first chance she gets, she heads out to Jim’s Enterprise to meet his Hikaru.

 

 

~ f ~


End file.
